Amazing Facts To Blow Your Mind

The mysteries of the Parthenon

The Parthenon is one of the most iconic and prized structures of Western civilization, but there are many mysteries surrounding it.

For example, how did the ancient Athenians carry all that marble from Mount Pentelicus and build this masterpiece with primitive tools and resources available at the time? How did they achieve such flawless proportions and balance? How did they conceive of and form such subtle visual elements? How did the workers work with such precision, sometimes accurate to within a fraction of a millimetre (when even modern computers fail), without the help of modern technology?

Construction of the Parthenon was under the general supervision of the artist Pheidias and began in 447 B.C and finished a phenomenal nine years later in 438 B.C. The architects, Ictinos and Callicratis, were masters of visual illusion for they engineered gentle curves throughout much of its design. There is hardly a straight line to be found in the temple!

Those questions still, after 2500 years, remain unanswered. That is the Glory of the Golden Age of Greece, the brightest and most fertile age human history has ever known.